MONSOON SEASON

In Arizona, we have a fifth season, the monsoon season, which begins in June and continues through September.

The name "monsoon" comes from the Arabic word "mausim" which means "wind-shift." While during the winter the primary wind flow in Arizona is from the west and northwest, during the summer the winds shift to a southerly or southeasterly direction. This brings moisture up from the Gulf of California and the Gulf of Mexico.

Before the actual thunderstorms, there are gust fronts that pick up large quantities of dust and sand from the desert floor, creating a dust wall called a haboob (from the Arabic word for wind). Many times the heavy pre-storm winds are more damaging than the thunderstorms themselves, although there are places plagued by regular monsoon flooding.

Here are two monsoon season poems:

Towering Cumulus

I.

Another appears outside our kitchen window.

Weather apps worry us with warnings

to watch for floods and thunderstorms--

as the dew point climbs higher and higher.

The wind picks up. Ripe grapefruit plop

to the ground while our wind spinner seems frantic--

as if its wheels might just crash through the window

and slice our throats. The sky darkens with thick dust

that will settle on patio table & potted plants.

Only a few fat raindrops splatter the pool.

Five miles up the road a neighborhood

suffers three inches of rain.

Cars trapped under downed power lines

& rescues in gullies get national attention.

II.

We waken to ozone alerts, humidity--hot and muggy

we say. Look at the sky. Yet another, we say.

Trapped in purgatory, we surmise

August will last at least 90 days.

            by Johnnie May Clemens

Standing Outside, I Remember A Line By Charles Wright

            Summer in the Sonoran Desert

From the concrete bridge,

a view north to Daisy Mountain,

dun-colored, a crooked triangle.

And in the south, dust

                        gathers its discontent.

We are deep in the monsoon season

when, in the parched parlance

of the desert, a storm's prefix

is dust.

A handful of dust is a handful of dust

                       no matter who holds it.

The east valley from Ahwatukee

and Queen Creek to Carefree and

as far away as the Tonto Basin

braces for what's to come.

            The afternoon air fidgets,

unappeased and impatient,

and, suddenly, before one of our

summer thunderstorms, gusts of wind

lift loose dirt from the arid land 

and build walls of dust and debris.

It's hard to imagine the height and length

--almost absurd in its drawn-out

deletion of all forms, everything

covered over to a camel brown.

Then a hard rain

                        with distant snarls

and snaps like a bad-tempered pit bull

barking at something we can't see.

            by Lenny Lianne

            (previously published in

            Inlandia: A Literary Journal)